British Tennis Star Tara Moore Receives Four-Year Ban for Doping Violations

Tara Moore Handed Four-Year Ban After CAS Overturns Doping Clearance.

British tennis player Tara Moore has been handed a four-year suspension from the sport after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld an appeal from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), reversing an earlier ruling that had cleared her of a doping violation.

Moore, 32, who was formerly Britain’s top-ranked doubles player, was provisionally suspended in June 2022 after testing positive for the banned anabolic agents nandrolone and boldenone. While she consistently denied any wrongdoing, attributing the positive test to contaminated meat, the CAS panel found the explanation insufficient.

“The player did not succeed in proving that the concentration of nandrolone in her sample was consistent with the ingestion of contaminated meat,” CAS said in a statement on Tuesday.

The panel concluded Moore had failed to demonstrate that her anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) was unintentional, resulting in the original decision by an independent tribunal being overturned.

Moore’s four-year ban is retroactive and will run from 15 July 2025, though it will be reduced to account for the time already served under provisional suspension since 2022.

The ruling ends a nearly two-year legal battle for Moore, who had earlier spoken publicly about the personal and professional toll of the case, saying she watched her “reputation, ranking, and livelihood slowly trickle away.”

Moore had also filed a cross-appeal, seeking either full exoneration or recognition of “no fault or negligence,” but CAS ruled that her appeal was inadmissible.

ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse defended the decision to appeal, saying:

“Our bar for challenging a first-instance decision is high, and this was not taken lightly. Based on the expert scientific advice we received, we were not satisfied that the player’s explanation adequately accounted for the levels of nandrolone found. Today’s CAS ruling supports that assessment.”

Moore has not yet issued a public statement in response to the decision.